The traditional yo-yo has two closely-spaced fly disks which have their axes of cylindrical symmetry aligned and are joined by a narrow axle along the axis of cylindrical symmetry. The traditional yo-yo includes a string which is attached, i.e., fixed, to the axle. The basic yo-yoing operation of the traditional yo-yo is the unrolling of the string about the axle as the yo-yo moves away from the operator, followed by the rolling up of the string about the axle as the yo-yo returns to the operator.
A free-spin yo-yo has a two-strand twisted string with a single-strand loop at its end so the axle can spin within the loop. A basic yo-yoing operation performable with the free-spin yo-yo is to make it “sleep,” i.e., spin at the end of the unrolled string without immediately returning up the string. Controlling if a free-spin yo-yo sleeps or returns, and controlling the length of a sleep requires some skill.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,332,102, issued Jun. 1, 1982 to Michael S. Caffrey, teaches a yo-yo which has a centrifugal force-actuated spring-loaded clutch mechanism. When the yo-yo rotates with sufficient speed, centrifugal force causes clutch members (16) and (18) mounted on the body to move outwards away from contact with a central hub (20) of the axle so the yo-yo operates as a free-spin yo-yo. Therefore, with a sufficiently hard “throw,” the yo-yo can be readily made to sleep. However, as the rotation of the yo-yo slows or as the result of a sharp translational acceleration, the clutch members (16) and (18) are spring biased by springs (22) and (24) to grip the central hub (20) so that the yo-yo operates as a traditional yo-yo. Therefore, sleeping is terminated and the yo-yo readily returns along the string by tugging on the string or waiting until the rotation of the yo-yo slows sufficiently. Thus, a centrifugal-clutch yo-yo provides the advantage of being easily induced to sleep like a free-spin yo-yo, and easily induced to return along the string like a traditional yo-yo.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a yo-yo having multiple modes of functions.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a yo-yo which can function as a traditional yo-yo or a free-spin yo-yo or a centrifugal-clutch yo-yo.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a multi-function yo-yo which is easily switched between different modes of functioning.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a multi-function yo-yo which has multiple, readily accessible function-switching levers.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and will be apparent from the description or may be learned from the practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the claims.